Facing a large deficit alongside the costs of two ongoing wars, President George W. Bush will submit a fiscal 2006 budget on Monday that sharply reduces funding for public health, the New York Times reported. The Department of Health and Human Services would receive 2.4 percent less, dropping to $68 billion, while Pentagon funding would climb 4.8 percent to $419.3 billion, not counting an expected $80 billion supplemental request for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Among the steepest reductions: nurse and health professional training cut 64 percent to $160.5 million, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention down nine percent overall, and bioterrorism preparedness funds trimmed 12.6 percent to $1 billion. Two small programs, covering traumatic brain injury treatment and umbilical cord blood stem-cell collection, would be eliminated entirely. The National Institutes of Health, the FDA, and abstinence-promotion initiatives would each see modest increases.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in February 2005, in its own words.